Keep Moving Forward, One Step at a Time

There’s only one thing you can do when confronted with difficult times: Move forward. Don’t allow the challenges of life to break you. Don’t allow these difficult experiences to derail you from pursuing your dreams. When life pushes you to the ground, force yourself back up again. Keep fighting the hardship and make one tiny little step after another. Moving forward during times of hardship is incredibly difficult and challenging. But after some time, you’ll notice that by taking one step after another, you’ve eventually overcome the struggle. This article is all about moving forward. It will show you what it really means to keep moving forward during times of great difficulties. It will also address what you can do to navigate through hard times. At the same time, the article will present you the most common obstacles that prevent people from moving forward.

The willingness to continuously keep moving forward is not only important during tough times. It’s just as important in many other aspects of life as well.

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things, because we’re curious… and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” Walt Disney

Moving forward in life helps you to avoid stagnation. It allows you to maintain your pace, without being lured away by the various temptations of life. Similarly, the willingness to move on helps you to explore new opportunities where other people see only problems. By doing so, moving forward helps you to stop complaining about the struggle and makes you actively do something about it.

Keep making progress, one step after another.

Especially during difficult times, it seems tempting to hide away and to quit fighting. It’s always easier to give up and to fantasize about someone who will come to your rescue. At the same time, none of these things will help you to overcome the issues you’re confronted with. Giving up will only make things worse.

Keep Moving Forward, One Step at a Time

Life can be a tough ride. Sometimes it knocks you down for no good reason. There will be strokes of fate and deep hits that will suck the zest for life out of you. It may even get so difficult that all hope seems lost.

When you’re confronted with these incredible difficulties, it’s important not to lose hope. Similarly, it’s important not to give up during these times. Life can hit you as hard as it will, if you always get back up again and continue pursuing your goals, it cannot stop you.

As you can see, it doesn’t matter so much how unfair life treats you. What matters is that you have the willingness to keep going despite the great challenges.

Table of contents

Let’s start with a short explanation of what it actually means to keep moving forward life.

The meaning of moving forward

Moving forward means not to accept the calamities of life to break you. It means that you are willing to continue even during times of great difficulties. It also implies that you keep fighting until the obstacles – no matter how huge – are overcome. But moving forward also means that you do not allow external circumstances to stop you from the pursuit of your goals.

If you fail, moving forward helps you to find another way of accomplishing your dreams. If life pushes you to the ground, the willingness to move forward helps you to get back up again. It will get you going again until you’ve worked yourself out of the difficulties.

Keep moving forward in life

Life is not always a joyful ride. It can treat you really bad sometimes. Before you even realize, it drags you away from the sunny side of life into a dark storm. Headwind will oppose every one of your movements. Trials and tribulations will rain down upon you like hailstones. Setbacks and failures accompany every one of your steps.

When the going gets tough, people usually start looking for something to blame. Admittedly, this is a relatively easy thing to do. There will be always someone or something to blame. For this reason, it’s always easier to play the victim in difficult situations. But none of this will lead you anywhere. Playing the victim will not help you to move on with your life. All it does is to immobilize and discourage you from ever attempting to break free.

The world can be quite a tough place. Life beats you up and knocks you to the ground, over and over again. What is worse, life will give it’s very best to keep you permanently down on the ground. But only if you let it do so.

There are many who complain about how hard life has hit them. They think about each individual punch over and over again, deeply despising the pain that came with it. Regret, anger, and sadness about what happened take turns. These people feel sorry for themselves and wish that it had never happened. They cannot stop thinking about how it all happened and what they could have done in order to prevent it. In short, they simply cannot accept that they’ve got beaten by life. Their inability to accept what happened centers all their attention on the problem. This, in turn, limits them from finding a solution that allows them to gradually break free.

The great problem with all of this is that not moving on is not going to help you in any way, shape, and form. For this reason, life is not about counting how often and measuring how hard it has hit you. It’s all about finding ways to get back up again, no matter how often or how hard it hits you. It’s about moving forward despite the greatest difficulties and obstacles.

“Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” Kahlil Gibran

When you’re confronted with difficulties, remind yourself that it is not so important what happens to you. Be aware that it is far more important how you think about what happened and how you react to it. It’s about making the choice to gather all the strength and courage that is left deep within you in order to get back up on your feet.

8 tips to help you keep moving forward

1. Change how you think about hardship

The ability to keep moving forward in life greatly depends on your attitude. If you allow setbacks and difficulties to break you, no progress can be made. At the same time, if you are determined not to allow difficulties to stop you, you will be able to get back up on your feet one time after another. But how can you develop the necessary attitude that keeps you moving?

In order to have the attitude that keeps you moving no matter what, it’s necessary to change how we think about difficulties, setbacks, and hardship.

It is only too understandable that no one of us likes hardship. We see absolutely no good in it because it makes us feel uncomfortable and can inflict great pain upon us. However, it is important to realize that suffering cannot be avoided. We are all confronted with difficulties and setbacks wherever we go. But this does not mean that we are powerless. We may not be able to stop hardship from happening, but we surely can change how we think about it. We can greatly influence how we respond to it. And we always get to decide whether we really want to allow these struggles to break us.

When it comes to suffering, the natural tendency is to try to get over it as quickly as possible. And once this is accomplished, you might give your very best to forget what happened. But that’s the great problem. By trying to forget what happened as quickly as possible, you deprive hardship of its meaning and value.

On the one hand, you can always try to ignore what happened. On the other hand, you can also use the experiences you’ve made in order to grow as a person. If you use these challenges and learn important lessons from them, hardship does ultimately serve you. It is no longer an enemy but a great teacher that provides important lessons about life. At the same time, by finding meaning in hardship, you can prevent it from breaking you.

2. Use your experiences to grow stronger

Struggles and difficulties can be truly challenging. They can bring you to your limits and may even push you beyond these boundaries. The hardship will also confront you with situations in which all hope seems lost. When this happens, it’s important to remind yourself how important it is to keep fighting and to keep moving forward. It’s important to be aware that this intensive test will contribute to your growth – in the long run.

If you accept the fight and if you use these experiences to grow stronger, you will stand firm like a rock during the times of great difficulties. Even more importantly, you will use the ashes and ruins that the storm left behind in order to build the fundament for something better.

3. Don’t try to evade the problems, face them

Although it is far more comfortable to hide away from struggles, it won’t get you very far. In fact, it does nothing to better your situation. Don’t keep telling yourself that everything will eventually work itself out. It won’t happen. Sticking your head in the sand and hoping that things automatically get better is never a great idea. It could even make things much worse.

Even if it is painful, try to confront your problems. Be honest with yourself and stop pretending that everything is fine when it’s clearly not. It will be definitely difficult to face your problems head on. It may make you feel uncomfortable and it will also push you to your boundaries. At the same time, however, this is the only way to truly break free.

Don’t shy away from meeting unpopular but necessary decisions. Always remind yourself how important it is to keep moving forward.

4. Keep moving forward patiently

Another integral aspect of moving forward is patience. In many situations, change can only be affected gradually. It’s almost impossible to make long-lasting changes overnight. Instead, try to see it as a process that requires you to make one step after another. If you have the necessary patience it takes to gradually move forward, you will eventually see results. But those who wish to make big leaps within a really short time only get discouraged when they see no results.

Develop the necessary patience that it takes to see difficult times through. It’s quite important to realize that the struggle will not last forever. At the same time, try to become aware that all the pain that is inflicted upon you will eventually help you to become a stronger and wiser person. Always keep in mind that you will one day have overcome all these difficulties and that you will emerge as a transformed person from it.

5. Keep your goal in mind

Unfortunately, it’s incredibly easy to lose sight of your dreams and goals when confronted with difficulties. You may find yourself confronted with daunting obstacles that are almost impossible to tackle. During these situations, it’s important to take a step back in order to see the bigger picture. Realize that all this suffering serves a certain purpose, i.e. it helps you reach your goals. If you are able to keep your goals in sight, it tremendously helps you to keep moving forward even when the going gets tough.

6. Don’t regret what happened, learn to accept

Regret is something that can greatly prevent you from moving forward. If you are unable to accept what happened, you will waste precious time and energy while mulling over your misery again and again.

Acceptance is, therefore, an important step towards moving forward with your life. Without it, you can never really make progress. For this reason, try to free yourself from the burden that regret has placed upon you.

7. Seize the power of the moment

Living in the past will not help you to get unstuck. At the same time, overly worrying about the future will also not help you to get going. Realize that the past cannot be changed and that the future is not set in stone. This will shift your attention from being centered too much on the past or future back to the present moment. Doing so affects an important change in perspective, as it will allow you to make use of the power of the present moment to build a better future. Moving forward is all about seizing the moment in order to effect beneficial changes in your life.

8. Take responsibility

If you’re unwilling to take responsibility for your own faults, moving forward in life may become incredibly difficult. The reason for this is because hiding from your responsibility will only encourage you to play the blame game. If you pass blame from yourself to others, you only stigmatize yourself as the victim. This may be quite comfortable at first, but eventually, you will realize that a victim is helpless and cannot do something about the situation.

It takes an active approach to move forward in life. This process can only be set into motion by claiming full responsibility for your own mistakes. In many cases, this may be quite difficult to do. At the same time, it is what is needed to stay in control of your life. Otherwise, you will only give your power away.

10 things that stop you from moving forward

After we’ve discussed what you can do to keep moving forward in life, it’s important to address the obstacles that can prevent you from doing so. But what is it that stops you from making progress?

Refusal to accept risks. No progress in life comes without risks. You don’t necessarily have to take the riskiest alternative in order to move forward. However, shying away from any kind of risk will only paralyze you. There are some situations in which you simply have to confront the unknown. If you allow uncertainty and fear to stop you from doing what is necessary, nothing will be accomplished.

Not being committed enough. Ask yourself how badly you want to move on with your life. If you are only halfheartedly committed to affecting changes in your life, you will quickly become discouraged. However, if you are committed and if you know exactly what you want, you will thrive.

Having no direction. If you don’t know what it is you want to keep moving forward to, you will only waste your time. Not having a clear destination in mind will only lead you to go in circles. But once you do know exactly what you want and where you want to go, nothing can stop you from gradually getting closer to your goals.

Not believing in yourself. Why should anyone give their very best to move forward in life if they don’t even believe that they can succeed at it? A great obstacle that prevents many from making progress in life is that they lack faith in themselves. They are overtly critical about themselves and give their best to keep themselves small. Therefore, try to assess your abilities realistically and start believing in yourself. You can definitely make it, as long as you are absolutely convinced of it.

Being too comfortable where you are. Admittedly, there are times where rest and a little inactivity are quite beneficial. These times help you to recharge your batteries and prepare you for the tasks that lie ahead. However, becoming too comfortable is not always such a good thing. It limits your progress and prevents you from moving forward. Try not to feel too comfortable within your comfort zone. Instead, try to test your limits and seek to go further. Explore the unknown and push yourself to reach new heights.

Laziness and being unproductive. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that being unproductive and lazy does not help you to make progress in your life. All they do is waste your precious time. At one point in your life, however, you have to ask yourself the question if you want to continue seeking pleasurable distractions or if you are finally willing to make progress.

Overthinking things. It’s always good to think about your actions. Thinking and planning are essential elements of the pursuit of your goals. However, these two aspects alone won’t affect anything. It is required to combine thinking and planning with action. Those who overthink even the most insignificant decisions never take action based upon their plans. Instead, they will find one reason after another why it is better to find a much better alternative.

Not making adjustments. Albert Einstein once said that it is insane to expect different results when doing the same over and over again. If you find that your present activities do not help you to make progress in life, see if you can make adjustments. Be willing to experiment with new approaches.

Waiting for the perfect moment. There will never be the right time and the perfect moment. As you wait for the perfect time to come, you only waste important time. If you want to move forward in life, seize this very moment.

Perfectionism. In certain professions, perfectionism is the key to greatness. But life is not always about making things perfect. It’s all about doing what gives you results. In this sense, obsessive perfectionism can be quite an obstacle. This is especially the case when your desire to make something perfect stops you from using your time efficiently.

Moving forward quotes

Let’s conclude this article with a collection of the best quotes about moving forward.

“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.” Steve Maraboli

“It is always important to know when something has reached its end. Closing circles, shutting doors, finishing chapters, it doesn’t matter what we call it; what matters is to leave in the past those moments in life that are over.” Paulo Coelho

“The only thing a person can ever really do is keep moving forward. Take that big leap forward without hesitation, without once looking back. Simply forget the past and forge toward the future.” Alyson Noel

“Even a rock moves on.” Anthony Liccione

“In the process of letting go you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.” Deepak Chopra

I hope you enjoyed this article about the importance of moving forward in life.

About Author

Steve is the founder of Planet of Success, the #1 choice when it comes to motivation, self-growth and empowerment. This world does not need followers. What it needs is people who stand in their own sovereignty. Join us in the quest to live life to the fullest!

8 Comments

Quite a long post, but full of substance. I learned and get inspired as well. The pieces of advice are easier said than done. However, those things are not impossible to do. Thanks for uplifting one’s soul.

Love this post. I’ve just tweeted it using the impacting 1st line ‘There’s only one thing you can do when confronted with difficult times: Move forward.’ Having gone through the turmoil of severe illness, and having lost my way for a time, I learnt to use the phrase ‘never give up.’ This reminded me of my goals, and as you say it is your bigger picture, that dream you hold inside, that can give you the power to fight on and keep going. It really can make the difference, better than any medicine.

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